The Kingdom of Night (Book 3)

Prologue - 3 September 1939

Above: Daily Mail front page, 4 September 1939

Berlin, Germany, 00.45 GMT

Two figures waited at the Brandenburg Gate, under the blood-red flags of the Third Reich. One was a tall broad man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, bloodshot gray eyes, and a surly attitude. The other was smaller, clean-cut, and wore the black uniform of the elite Nazi SS. They had both received notes earlier that day to meet at this appointed time. They were unsigned, but polite, and had evidently had no regard for the receiver's rank or station.

     'So you got the note too?' asked the first man, in brisk clipped German. He rubbed his unshaven chin–a sign of uneasiness.

     'Yes,' replied the SS man, in the same language. He sounded irritated, but there was no way to tell if it was the unreasonable hour or the ambiguity of the meeting that was causing it.

     'Strange, don't you think? To bring an SS man like you and a Gestapo officer like me together?' He tugged at his uniform. He'd put on some weight since his recruitment over a year ago, and now it was straining in uncomfortable places.

     'You don't think we're the most qualified?' The small man's eyes glinted dangerously under the brim of his peaked cap.

     The other man raised his hands, resisting all temptation to back away slowly. 'I do, but I don't understand why we are both here.'

     Right then, a third figure appeared out of the darkness, as if he had been part of it himself. He had a wide-brimmed fedora pulled down low over his face, so the two men could only see his mouth and his chin. A long black coat concealed the rest of his body, but glinting at them from his throat was a bright silver tie pin, in the shape of two lightning bolts. An SS sympathizer. They could trust him.

     'I see you received my notes,' said the stranger, his accent neutral and his voice silky.

     'How could we not?' said the SS man, sounding cold and mistrustful. 'I do not get private correspondence often.'

     'That is beside the point,' snapped the third man, in a sudden flare of temper. 'What I need from you is very specific.'

     'As followers of those who give very specific orders, sir, we are aware,' said the Gestapo man. 'And we will carry them out to the best of our abilities.'

     'I want to finish this,' he said, and fished a slim glass jar sealed with wax out of an inner pocket of his coat. It contained a silvery-blue cloud, seemingly glowing from within, that changed shape as they watched. 'My partner died before he could finish, but the goal is the same—to create an Elemental unlike any the world has ever seen before.'

     'And how is that being done, sir?' the SS man, an Air-Elemental himself, asked. He had indeed heard of the man who had built the machine that sucked the Elemental soul straight from the body. The Essence machine, it had been called. As a small boy it had struck terror into him, but that frightened little boy no longer existed.

     'I am rebuilding the Essence Machine,' said the stranger. 'I have taken it upon myself to succeed where other successors of Benedict Huntley's legacy have failed. I will rebuild it, and then all will become clear.'

     'I see,' said the Gestapo man, still doubtful and unafraid to show as much. 'Yet I still do not understand one thing. Who is to be the most powerful Elemental in the world? It seems a rather ambitious goal for three men who have already been on the losing side of a world war–not to mention quite possibly on the brink of another one.'

     'That,' said the stranger, pocketing the jar again. 'You will find out soon. Until then, you must mention nothing of our meeting tonight.'

     The two men nodded, and the stranger melted back into the shadows without a sound or a trace that he had ever been there at all.

||

London, England, 13.30 GMT

George Haywood was out of the house when the war announcement came over the radio. He'd been playing rugby with some of his boarding school friends, and returned to the house in Belgrave Square grass-stained and disheveled. He dragged himself into the drawing room, finding his parents and most of the staff glued to the wireless.

     'Mother? Dad? What happened?' He could feel the tension in the room, but was unsure of the source. It seemed to emanate from everywhere. Even the air seemed drawn tight enough to break.

     His father turned worried eyes on him, saying nothing, while his mother sprang up from her chair and pulled him into a rose-scented embrace.

     'What's going on?' he tried again, still no less confused. 

     'Oh, darling,' His mother pulled back, her eyes a shifting, distressed shade of bluish-gray. 'War was announced. The Germans invaded Poland last night.'

     'But I...I thought they weren't going to,' George said, indignant, seeing his father coming up behind his mother. His expression  was dark and his eyes were restless. 'They promised. They said they wouldn't. The world's gone mad, it has.'

     'We all knew that bloody idiot Hitler was a liar. He promised peace too, and what did that get us?' He grasped his wife's shoulder gently, who had pulled George back in for another lung-constricting embrace. 'Grace darling, you're hurting him, surely.'

     His mother released him, and finally George could breathe again. Now she sagged back against her husband, having lost all will to stand. The telephone rang distantly in the hallway, and the butler mechanically excused himself from the room to answer it. 

     'What will we do, Dad?' George asked, meeting his father's eyes. He saw fear there, fear and an uncharacteristic uncertainty. 'Now that we're...at war?'

     Peter Haywood drew himself up to his full height. 'Like my father said to me once, son, we will stand our ground and accept neither failure nor defeat.'

     George believed him wholeheartedly. They had weathered one war. Now the time had come to weather another.